Volume 4, Issue 5, page 7
SOME FORERUNNERS
of "TOTOLOGY"
Part I -- By HARDIN WALSH
'D LIKE TO give you a very conservative
statement here, which is similar to
one Joanna and I make: "Men are not
animals erect, but immortal gods. The
Creator has given us souls equal to
all the world and yet satiable not
even with the world. Everything is possible to man."
This was written by a chap 400 years
ago -- Francis Bacon. He lived between 1561
and 1626, and was quite an individual. He
wrote about everything and everybody, and
all things in a way very similar to Aristotle, except that Francis Bacon practically foamed at the mouth at the mention
of Aristotle. He said "logic and reason"
was all wet, but strangely enough, the
most important book he wrote, "Novum Organum " , is now considered the bible for
logic and reason.
Bacon invented inductive reasoning. Or
rather, he took Aristotle's ideas and
turned them around a little, and invented
what is now the basis of all scientific
thinking -- inductive reasoning. This is
the idea that you examine physical things
and come to a conclusion. For example,
you examine five rocks industriously and
eventually come to the conclusion that
there is gold in them, perhaps, or whatever conclusion you may be looking for.
Bacon probably has affected our lives
more than anyone else since Aristotle in
that he set up certain goals for men and
they have used these goals; they have
come to these conclusions.
W e have two opposing schools of
thought, basically -- inductive reasoning,
where you look at the physical universe
and come to a conclusion, and the other
school of thought is deductive reasoning,
where you set up a hypothesis or postulate
and look for proof of it. In the last 10
or 20 years, this has become the more
acceptable scientific procedure, and as a
result, science has advanced tremendously.
What happens when you use inductive
reasoning -- examine the universe and put
all your attention on the physical? Here,
you get a separateness from the spiritual,
or Totality.
Bacon was a complete contradiction. He
made the very true statement that men are
immortal gods, yet he was guilty of doing
what so many of us still do -- thinking one
thing and doing another. Just knowing
about it isn't enough. We have to learn
how to set up our conclusions in such a
way that we arrive at certain decisions.
He worked out a very ingenious scheme
and it sounds like real fancy doubletalk.
He said: "If a man will begin in certainties, he shall end in doubt. But if he be
SEPTEMBER, 1957 - T b A R R R R R E_
iPh
g/woo AN
3300 44,